Father John A. Hardon, S.J. Archives

Spiritual Exercises

Ignatian Retreat

(August 1975)

Decision Making in the Spiritual Life

Conference by Fr. John A. Hardon, S.J.

If there is anything characteristic
about Saint Ignatius, it is his maxim that people make up their minds and decide
with their wills. Perhaps a one word description of Ignatian spirituality would
be "decisiveness". However, quite apart from this being characteristic
of Ignatius, it is also essential to a life of Christian perfection. Indeed,
without making both long and short range decisions, holiness is a dream. It
will never be achieved.

My intention is to cover this
large ascetical subject by first asking, "Why is decision making in the
spiritual life so important?" Then, "What do we mean when we speak
of making decisions?" and very practically, How do we make not only effective,
but more effective decisions in the life that God has given us?"

First, why is it so important?
Making decisions involves the human will which is the necessary counterpart
to divine grace. Grace alone will not even save us let alone sanctify us.
It must be grace from God and also our free cooperation with grace. Moreover
we believe, and it has been clarified as never before in the Second Vatican
Council, that all Christians are called to holiness. It is equally obvious,
if not more so, that not all Christians are holy. So, second, if all are called
to holiness and not all are holy, then the reason must be that people have not
been making those free-will decisions which are necessary if we are going to
use this grace. Our decisions, made with our free wills, determine not only
how holy we are but whether we shall be holy. If there is one article of our
faith that should be blazoned across the portals of every religious house, it
is that divine grace is resistible. If we can resist grace, the same free will
can cooperate with it, either weakly or strongly.

Moreover, life whether physical
or spiritual involves a struggle. These struggles are part, not only of life
but are even necessary for survival in life. And while there would have to
be many qualifications for applying the statement of Darwin literally, there
is such a thing as the "survival of the fittest" spiritually. Those
survive in the spiritual life who have cultivated the habit of making clear,
strong decisions. Like what? Like coping with the trials and difficulties that
are part of the struggle of life and not giving in. No struggle, no progress.
But if we want to not merely survive in our struggles but by mastering them
become holy, we must use our God-given free wills and decide that we are going
to cope with these trials and with grace, overcome them. A large part of growth
in holiness is decisiveness in struggling with the problem of life.

God is unpredictable. We must
be ready to constantly readjust ourselves to His will. In a word, we must decide
not only once and for all, but every time He tests our loyalty, to decide to
be loyal. Leave it to God to do the unexpected. Decision making, therefore,
is important even to remain super-naturally alive. It is decisively important
if we are going to grow in sanctity.

We ask ourselves, "What
does this decision making mean?" We can distinguish for the sake of convenience
three levels of making decisions and give each of these three levels a name:
decision as commitment, decision as resolution, and decision as choice. What
do we mean by each? All are part of our lives.

First, decision as commitment.
This involves the decision that I am confident we have all made, to choose our
state of life. All should make such a decision. One weekend in Chicago I ran
a seminar for single women. There were forty professional women in their late
twenties to their early forties who had all reached the upper ladder in their
business or profession. They were doctors, sociologists, teachers, nurses,
a personnel director for TWA, and the editor of the AMA Journal. All, seemingly,
were successful women, but most of them had never made a decision regarding
their state of life. They had not realized that a state of life is not a job
nor an employment. A state of life is what I decide God wants me to do with
my life: whether I am to marry or remain single, and if I am to marry, to whom.
If you wish to remain single, which is a state of life, in what state will you
be single? Will it be in the world? That is a genuine state of life. Is it
in the religious life or a secular institute? If it is the religious life, in
which community?

This is no easy task. Decision
making is hard work and requires effort. We shall all assume that on this first
level of decision making as commitment we have decided for the religious life.
There are many synonyms for commitment. I like these two: dedication and consecration.
Decision making as commitment is a long range, indeed, a life-long decision.
We make it now, but the assumption is that we are going to keep it until we
die. That's the essence of commitment. There are two features to decision
making as commitment which I want to bring out because they are likely to be
missed. The first is that when we make a commitment we really make a promise
to God. Its remarkable how many people, even after years in the religious
life, don't see clearly that entering the religious life and making that kind
of commitment is a promise they have made to God. It's a covenant and when
we make a promise to God, it is a solemn covenant. When we take our vows, we
call God to witness to, the sincerity of our decision and to the earnest plea
and confidence we have that He will give us the grace to remain faithful to
our decision.

Secondly, commitment as this
kind of decision, is a promise also made to others whom we join and who have
made the same kind of commitment. So we assume two kinds of responsibility.
One before God, one before the people towards whom and with whom we are to live
out our commitment. Both place obligations on us. Before God, the obligation
to live up to the expectations that He tells us He expects of us according to
the teachings of His Church and with respect to the religious family to whom
we make our commitment by covenant, in a relationship which gives them a right
to expect of us loyalty to the community, the evidence of good example, and
the assurance of our assistance. They depend on us and how seldom religious
think of that! We can be so wrapped up in self as to overlook the fact that
our fellow religious need us to live up to their respective commitment to God.
Of course, we need them too, but I am stressing our obligation to them. They
need us. So much for decision as commitment.

Now decision as resolution.
This is somewhat different and not precisely the long-range decision in terms
of a lifetime commitment. It is rather, as in times of retreat or in times
of crisis when we are called upon to make certain decision as resolutions.
A critical situation develops and although we have made our long-range commitment,
we need soon to make a few more decisions. Now in essence decision as resolution
serves the purpose of keeping alive and sustaining decision as commitment.
We must periodically expect (and once a year is about as long as we should wait)
to reassess how well we have been doing, where we have failed, and to resolve
to improve our lives so that our long-range commitment will be faithfully kept.

Decision as choice. We are
going to go over each of these three in the next part of this conference. I
just want to explain here what each kind of decision making means. Decisions
as choice are those multitudinous acts of the will that we are called upon to
make every day and depending on our lives, even many times a day. They are
every opportunity we see for cooperating with God's actual grace. Consequently,
we should pause for a moment and ask, "What does God want me to do?"
And then we decide to do it.

Now the third part of our conference:
how to make good decisions. Clearly these three levels of decision making are
different, but they have much in common, especially the need for clear and ready
motivation. If we are going to make good decisions, whether it is commitment,
resolutions or choices, our minds must be clear and we must have all kinds of
ready motives upon which the will is to decide. One of the main purposes of
meditation, which is another word for prayerful reflection, is to have a stockpile
of motives ready for instant picking, to use when we need to make a decision,
because the will is a blind faculty. It will never act, in this case, never
decide, unless it has a reason for doing so. The better the reasons, the deeper,
the more generous, the more sacred and more easily available for instant use,
the more decisive we shall be in our spiritual lives. A lot of people are indecisive,
not because they don't have a strong will but because they don't have a clear
mind. They know they should act but they don't know why.

But now, speaking of what I
sometimes call "supernatural methodology", let us consider in sequence
each of the three types of decision.

First, how can we strengthen
our decision making as commitment? If we want to take one suggestion on this
level, we should decide that we have made our commitment, and that is no mean
decision to make! Consequently, do not look back or reexamine, "Do I or
don't I have a vocation?" That's dangerous. That is like walking along
a state highway on a Sunday afternoon without looking, or trying to cross Park
Avenue in New York City without looking in all directions at once. To strengthen
a commitment, I recommend favoring those thoughts that confirm our commitment;
avoid all the others. Meditate on the beauty, the value, the benefits of religious
life. Consider every contrary thought a temptation. Read the lives of the
saints, especially those saints who were religious. Be faithful to your commitment.
One of the graces that God gives faithful religious, those who live up to the
demands of their state of life, is to make them more and more sure of themselves.
Insecurity about one's vocation is the consequence of a lack of fidelity. You
might ask yourselves during a retreat, "How total is my commitment? Am
I perhaps cheating on poverty; on chastity; on obedience?" Commitment means
total self-sacrifice.

Secondly, we ask ourselves
how to make our resolutions more effective. For example, during retreat time
we are wise first to isolate what we find is most fundamental in our lives.
What is it that most calls for correction, removal, change, improvement, or
acceptance. For no two of us will it be the same. What one person may have
to remove, another may have to insert. That is why each one makes the retreat
for him or herself. That is not a platitude. We make our own resolutions.
Be specific. Is it my suffering? Or is it other persons or some other one person?
Then decide. The more we reflect on our failings the more conscious we become
on how many we have - but take one at a time.

Nevertheless, it is not enough
to decide on what virtue we should practice. We must also decide on what means
we have to take in order to practice that virtue. Is it humility? There is
no humility without humiliations, so if you don't have humiliations, then find
some. I am not joking! However, most of us with a little insight can find enough
humiliations if we are willing to accept them. Someone might ask, "Is
it my prayer life? I am so empty when I am in chapel." No wonder! You've
never taken the trouble to put enough sacred thoughts on your mind to think
about! Spiritual reading is absolutely necessary for a life of prayer. "Is
it my lack of charity, or unkindness in my speech?"

I often tell women that by non-verbal
communication they can insult another, in simply casting their eyes down. The
merest purse of the lips and one might just as well have stabbed you. Those
whom the Lord has made so sensitive in emotion and such geniuses in expressing
their feelings, must remember that their sensitivity is also present in other
people. We shall never grow in genuine charity unless we realize, often with
difficulty, that we hurt people. Because "this is the way I am" does
not mean that this is the way we are supposed to remain. It would be a good
idea once in a while to find out from one of your fellow religious just how
we affect others. Fraternal correction, even solicited, was one of the things
the saints did.

Decide on appropriate means,
which will differ with each one of us, on how to practice the virtues that each
one needs. I recommend writing down on a little 3 x 5 card a summary of resolutions
and placing it in your prayer book or Office book for a periodic reminder.

Finally how are we to develop
the habit of making wise decisions as wise choices in our daily spiritual lives?
The basic secret is to cultivate good habits. Why? Because a good habit insures
making wise decisions with minimum deliberation. If we have to go into a big
huddle with ourselves on every least decision during the day, we would be emotionally
exhausted. The odds are that we would not make a decision, and we are likely
to make a lot of wrong decisions.

How do we cultivate good habits
which will spare us the impossible task of going into a major deliberation every
time we are supposed to make a simple choice? We do so by making ourselves (and
I emphatically use the word "Making") do and repeat doing what faith
tells us we should do. All we have to know is that faith tells us God wants
us to do it. That's enough. Then we must make ourselves do it and make ourselves
repeat doing it. Is it getting up promptly? Then get up promptly. Is it accepting
a humiliation? Then take it. Is it keeping my lips closed when I am tempted
to say something unkind? Then I seal my lips.

Now the sequence. Repetition
produces spontaneity. Because we make ourselves repeat a given action we induce
spontaneity. How do we get to be spontaneous in doing something? Do it often.
In time it will be spontaneous. Spontaneity produces ease, ease produces readiness,
and readiness produces satisfaction in what we are doing. And once we are satisfied
in what we are doing, we won't have to go into a big decision making process.
Do you know why? We all do easily what we like to do.

The problem with these many
daily choices is that they are often things we don't like to do. So what I
am telling you is a tried and proven method of getting ourselves to like to
do what we are supposed to do. Then the number of these choices during a day
will be minimized and the few that we have to make, we will make easily.

But what about those unexpected
situations that come up any time during the day? Same thing. God will insure
that we will make wise on-the-spot decisions provided our habitual desire is
to do His will no matter how hard it is. We are to decide that we shall do
God's will no matter what it costs us. Make that decision and all other decisions
will follow. Hence the need for a daily rededication of ourselves wholeheartedly
to the will of God. It may be in the morning; it may be during the day, or
at night. If in the morning, which I particularly recommend, and if it is made
in the Morning Offering, we must be sure to be aware of what we are doing.
We are making for the rest of the day that major decision where we offer up
to the Heart of Christ through the hands of His Mother everything He sends us
and we will do everything He asks of us especially when it costs dearly.

The beautiful thing is that
even if we make the offering once a day or better, more than once, then when
the hard choices come during the day, we shall be graced for the occasion, by
which I mean we shall have the supernatural light and strength from the previous
decision we have made of consecrating ourselves totally to the service of God.
Remember this, decision making is not all, nor even mainly our doing. Even
the very cooperation with grace requires grace for which we ask the Lord to
be ready when we need it.